Once cutting-edge, buildings from the’60s seek new roles for 21st century
From the looks of some dilapidated 1960s buildings in Athens, it is hard to believe that just 40-45 years ago they represented the future and wore about them an aura of brilliant expectation. Postwar modern architecture creates a certain atmosphere along many of the city’s main roads. Dressed in marble, glass and aluminium, the new Athens seems to have believed in a fairy tale. The ’60s style is as closely associated with Athens as a neoclassical house in Plaka or a run-of-the-mill apartment block in any neighborhood. But there is a painful charm in the fading of the postwar dream because it lasted such a short time and now, like a young man who has aged prematurely, seeks an unlined face and a dignified position in Athens which, sweeping everything before it, rapidly designates a new, complex role for its imagined future self. From the old Fix factory on Syngrou Avenue and office buildings to elegant downtown apartment blocks and the first tourist hotels, the Athens of the 1960s was built by some major names. Among the architects who designed with the impetus and optimism of people who believed they were building a new life were Nikos Valsamakis, Takis Venetos, Emmanouil Vourekas, Spyros Staikos, Pavlos Milonas, Dimitris Papazisis and Iason Rizos. Now many of those buildings have been judged unsuitable for adaptation to present needs. They are considered out of date and few appreciate their style. Most of them will be renovated from the foundations up, usually with the incorporation of new ideas. Some will be left to rot, others demolished. Emblematic hotels A stroll around Athens soon reveals that this once-new world is dying a slow death. In Syntagma Square, which had already shed its neoclassical cloak by the late ’50s, the box-like building on the corner of Ermou street (designed by the late Papazisis) has few admirers. In its day it was the epitome of modernism, and thus was seen by many as a form of desecration. The emblematic Amalia Hotel, on the corner of Amalias and Xenofontos, designed by Nikos Valsamakis in 1957, is closed for a thoroughgoing renovation by Alexandras Samaras and Colleagues SA. Like many projects from the 1960s tourism heyday (such as the Xenia and Amalia hotels), the Athens Amalia, built in a daring style for its time, must now adapt to another era. The Delphi Amalia, also a fine work built by Valsamakis in 1963, may soon restore its interior, which was designed in detail by the architect. Some rooms have already been renovated by Michalis Katzourakis. Mont Parnes, designed by Milonas, is marked for demolition, a prospect which has rallied many architects who have called on the Culture Ministry to intervene before the decision is carried out. The aging of materials and the obsolescence of the technology originally used often make aesthetic changes necessary. «The modernization of notable buildings from the 1950s and ’60s cannot be treated in a uniform manner,» commented architecture scholar Eleni Fessa-Emmanouil. «Both the absolute freedom now prevalent and the possibility that they might be listed for preservation have an equal effect on destroying their architectural value.» It is a complex issue that has triggered numerous approaches. Greece has only recently begun dealing with them, as isolated cases and according to circumstances, without seeing all sides to the question. Renovation You can see it all around you. Significant buildings that were privately designed have been divided up among several owners and are showing their age after only 40-50 years. Some have been included in radical renovation projects. One such is the office building on the corner of Academias and Dimokritou, which has acquired a facade in line with the very latest metropolitan perception of aesthetics. «Of the good buildings of that era, only a few are landmarks in the historic or symbolic sense, and few are of lasting or more than local architectural value, namely works that bear witness to the existence of important architects in Greece, which can contribute to the aesthetic development and self-esteem of the younger generation and which can stand comparison with buildings of the present,» said Fessa-Emmanouil. «So,» she added, «the problem is how significant buildings of that era can be functionally and technologically modernized without losing their symbolic and aesthetic architectural value. Because if that value is lost, what reason is there to retain a good building from the past rather than replacing it with a new one which expresses its era better and costs less?» Changing aesthetic criteria and the economic factor (since renovation is cheaper than demolition and then constructing a new building) impel us to reread 20th century architecture. This has happened in the past. It is just that now, in the rush and bustle of contemporary Athens, many good postwar modernist buildings will be masked forever by a new interpretation of what is important. The Xenia hotels designed by Aris Konstantindis have already been through a lot and are the most emblematic of that era, as are those of Valsamakis and Zenetos. What can one say about the quality still emitted by some buildings which once had the noble arrogance of the new that meets with general acceptance? Values and standards change, and never so fast.
